Our drive this week includes popular seaside towns in Victoria, brilliant driving roads, and an activity that gets the adrenalin pumping. The roads we take are never too far from an electric car charger, and we prove that you can indeed enjoy a touring drive in a limited-range electric vehicle. Here's how to get there!
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There are many different ways to get to Cape Paterson. We left Melbourne with a fully charged battery and cruised down the M1 before stopping at Cape Horn Lookout in Loch – still with plenty of charge to reach Inverloch.
Range anxiety was never an issue in our Mini EV, as the towns of Inverloch and Cape Paterson house electric vehicle charging stations.
The drive from Loch to Inverloch is a quick, scenic drive with sweeping bends, free-flowing roads, and views of vast countryside and rolling hills. The journey only takes around half an hour, placing us at our accommodation just in time to plug in our Mini.
We spent the night at the RACV Club in Inverloch, which provides charging stations, and the best part is they're free! The 22kW charger gives around 100km of range per hour of charging.
This part of the journey serves up some incredible stretches of tarmac. We made a slight detour to Stony Creek, where we stopped in to cut some laps at Stony Creek Go Karts. Not only does this get the adrenalin pumping in the morning, but it's the ultimate test for the Mini. Cruising in sport mode for the majority of this visit our battery depleted rapidly, but having planned our route, we were never far from a charging station.
The trip from Stony Creek to Cape Paterson is open, stunning and takes just over an hour. Once we arrived in the town of Cape Paterson, we were able to charge our EV, giving us time to explore the quaint seaside village. This meant we were fully caffeinated with a fully charged vehicle, ready to hit the road back to Melbourne.
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